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Bot funny business???

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by John Labrenz on Mon Jan 26, 2009 8:48 pm

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Ok...I just had a peek at "who is online"...and found the following;

MSN (bot) & Giga (bot)...viewing user control panel
Google Adsense (bot)...composing private message
Baidu (spider)...registering account

I have a rough understanding of how these bots work....but 1) how can a bot register an account, 2)compose a PM or 3)view a control panel which I think is only available to registered members?

Again, is there a fear that they come here to "lift" images?

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by Royce Howland on Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:56 am

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Viewing user control panel, composing a PM, etc. just means the bots have "clicked" the link through to those functions on the site. They are just spidering every link on every page trying to reach stuff. Images can't be lifted from our image forums because you have to be a registered member and log in to access those forums. But the discussion forums and any other pages that can be hit without logging in (like the editorial articles) will be indexed by the search engines...

Royce Howland

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by John Labrenz on Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:47 pm

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Royce;
I just logged out a few minutes ago...and came back to visit as an "unregistered" visitor.
As "unregistered"...I have NO access to the "control panel"....nor the "private message" page....the links to such functions don't even appear to non members!
So, that brings me back to my original question.....how can bots which are NOT registered members even access those links?

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by Royce Howland on Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:03 pm

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Not sure. The bots may be considered registered at some level by the forum software if they have identified themselves...

Royce Howland

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by John Labrenz on Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:05 pm

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"The bots may be considered registered at some level by the forum software"

So, wouldn't that imply they could also get into the image galleries?

.....just wondering.....

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by nclements on Wed Feb 04, 2009 10:57 pm

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gradient wrote:"The bots may be considered registered at some level by the forum software"

So, wouldn't that imply they could also get into the image galleries?

.....just wondering.....

The bots are considered registered on a very low level - they have their own group. However the permissions for that group are such that they can not get to the image forums except to the topic listings. So the bots can "see" the thumbnails, for example, but they can't "click through" to the actual image articles. Each of the bots you mentioned have their own specific user which does allow them to access the links you noted, but we lock down certain forums to specific groups. Royce is correct, only registered users who are members of a specific group (or a higher group - not the bots group) can see image forums.

Nicholas

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by John Labrenz on Thu Feb 05, 2009 1:30 am

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Thanks Nicholas.

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